Large numbers of foreigners from a variety of nationalities and religious and cultural backgrounds work and live among us. Estimated to number some six million, these people serve our country in different places and the billions of riyals we pay them is compensation for the effort and time they spend serving the country. This money is not, as some insist, any kind of drain on our national resources. What I am trying to do in this article is to explain the benefits we receive from so many of these people who are legally working and living here.
I want the Saudi public to pay more attention to the presence of these large numbers of foreigners workers by teaching them more about our religion, our country and its people. We should have been directing many of our dawa efforts (propagation of Islam) at the millions of foreigners living among us instead of spending millions of riyals on dawa and other such activities outside the Kingdom. Directing our efforts at these workers should be an important priority now that we have learned that the huge amounts originally intended for dawa in other countries have ended up in the wrong hands, thus benefiting dangerous groups.
The millions collected by local charity organizations through donations, zakah (alms) and other money for performing dawa, propagating Islam and helping our Mujahideen brethren should have been directed inward to educate the millions of foreign workers living among us.
There are a number of Islamic education centers active among expatriate communities in various cities in the Kingdom, but these offices are short of funds and staff. Their efforts should certainly be commended because they can be considered the best that dawa activities have achieved at the domestic level. The expatriate workers are curious to learn more about Islam and the Kingdom and if we cannot convert them, then the least we can do is turn them into friends and supporters by treating them fairly and providing them with accurate and reliable information. Six million expatriates are here to work and large numbers of them are ready to listen and learn. The authorities should direct the frozen funds of many charity organizations whose activities abroad have been suspended to enable local Islamic education centers to intensify their dawa activities among expatriates.
